


I'm a Certified Genius, I Swear

by Chaos_Greymistchild



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sugar Daddy, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Kisuke's obliviousness makes this feel like a, Kuorsaki Ichigo is a Shiba, M/M, Slow Burn, Sugar Daddy, Turn Back the Pendulum Arc, author is getting mildly better at tagging, believe me I was so tortured by this while writing it I don't even know anymore, mildly, specifically the Shiba Clan Head
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:35:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21971458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaos_Greymistchild/pseuds/Chaos_Greymistchild
Summary: Kisuke’s not quite sure why he keeps getting gifts from the Shiba Clan Head, Shiba Ichigo, but— Hiyori please stop laughingplease
Relationships: Kurosaki Ichigo/Urahara Kisuke
Comments: 43
Kudos: 1115
Collections: UraIchi Prompt Challenge #4





	I'm a Certified Genius, I Swear

**Author's Note:**

> UraIchi Prompt Challenge #4; prompt 64. "Stop spoiling me rotten. I am too young to deal with diabetes."
> 
> SHAMELESS SUGAR DADDY AU BASED ON [THIS](https://shimmyshimmylipgloss.tumblr.com/post/181854818109/writingmyselfintoanearlygrave) POST YOU GUYS BETTER APPRECIATE HOW LONG I TRAWLED THROUGH TUMBLR TO FIND A THEME THAT DIDN'T BURN MY (OR YOUR) EYES

Kisuke stared, disbelieving. Someone had—sent him a personal letter? Not an invitation to a captain's dinner, not Yoruichi’s customary, cursory dead mouse, not even a piece of paperwork that needed his immediate, personal presence. Just a simple, handwritten letter. And addressed to simply _Urahara Kisuke_ no less.

He hesitantly opened it and immediately closed it again. He slowly opened it up again just to make sure he wasn’t seeing things from his last experiment, which had admittedly involved hallucinogens and a dangerously close proximity to their resultant gases so as to more accurately record the results. The contents hadn’t changed.

 _Get food delivered, moron_ , and a handful of paper notes he counted out with shaking hands.

“Sarugaki,” he called, then tried to calm the slight quaver in his voice before speaking again, “Get lunch and dinner delivered to me for the following twelve days.”

She slammed open the door between hers and his office. “Did I hear you correctly?” she asked flatly, “ _You_ , ordering _food_ in?”

He weakly held up the notes and letter and she immediately silenced. “It appears that I have the means and orders to do so now.”

She stared at him blankly, then marched over, snatched the bills out of his hand, and marched out, throwing a “You better not regret this!” over her shoulder as she went.

That was, in the end, just the first incident of many.

The week after that, he was sent another letter, with more money, and instructions to make sure he was having a good breakfast as well before investing in his sciences. The week after that, the materials he had been hemming and hawing and cutting his meals and saving his mysterious sponsor’s money for were delivered to his lab. He meekly took this as a sign that the food money should really go towards eating.

After a couple months, a package reached his desk, wrapped in a jade-textured, jade green cloth. Sarugaki, who had been watching in something approaching the distant horror of an observer watching a train wreck unfold, made a strangled noise as he unwrapped the package. In it, were a fan, a hat and more folds of black and green fabric.

He looked up when he heard a sliding noise to see Sarugaki closing the door behind her without looking, her jaw as agape as his probably was.

“Do you want to—you know-” she made a vague sort of motion towards the package.

Kisuke jerked and looked back down at it again. He put the hat on his head absently and pulled out the folds of black and green fabric to reveal a set of green samue and what looked like an inversed captain’s haori.

A thump by the door as Sarugaki abruptly sat down.

“I do not think,” he said dryly, once he regained his voice, “that I will be wearing this around very casually.”

Unfortunately, it seemed his patron had other plans for him, since while the haori matter was laid aside, a fresh set of green samue arrived at his desk every two days until he finally capitulated and wore one of the now-numerous sets he owned. It was surprisingly comfortable, and he soon found himself wearing them more often than not.

His sponsor went back to sending him food money, materials out of his price range, and random trinkets once a week, every week.

In the meantime, Kisuke began his own discrete investigations into who could be sending him such items.

The next day, a carrier containing a certain murderously unhappy cat appeared on his desk. Not delivered by the bemused courier who was handling all this, but, presumably, by his patron themselves.

He got the message.

Kisuke started investigating solely by himself instead of through an agent.

After a couple weeks of slow but steady investigation, his sponsor took him out to dinner.

There was no new package on his desk with a courier hovering for his signature, as he had come to expect, just a letter that Hiyori handed to him personally with a frown.

_Kisuke,_

_Dinner at Satobu’s udon restaurant. Usual time. If you don’t turn up, I’ll send you everything tomorrow._

Satobu’s was barely a breath’s shunpo away.

Hiyori stared at him, stone-faced. “Well?” she demanded.

He shrugged, affecting nonchalance, “It seems I’ve been asked out to dinner.”

That was the first time Hiyori felt comfortable and frustrated enough to throw a sandal at him while screeching insults. Kisuke took it as a victory.

His… sponsor? dinner-mate? was affluent. He’d known that before. Those lunches, materials, clothes… there was nothing cheap about them and everything was provided at the highest level of craftsmanship. Except for the meals. He’d long since cultivated a taste for cheap take-away that meant he could afford to eat for longer than usual.

The thing was, he hadn’t realised just _how_ affluent his sponsor was.

“Shiba-sama,” he greeted, bowing his head.

Shiba Ichigo waved aside his bow. “No need. And you can call me Ichigo.”

“Did you require something of me?” He asked warily once the waiter had taken their orders and left. Powerful people like Shiba Clan Head Shiba Ichigo did not just invest in former-Rukongai stock like him unless they expected certain benefits from it.

“Just that you stop trying to investigate me.”

He twitched. “It is in my experience, Shiba-sama, that powerful people like you do not spend so much without expecting… something, in return.” He sipped at his tea as he spoke to avoid looking into Shiba’s eyes.

Shiba seemed to be genuinely confused. “I… don’t? Other than that you look after yourself. I just want to take care of you,” Shiba declared.

He smiled thinly behind his cup. “If that is your will, Shiba-sama.”

“Ichigo,” Shiba corrected.

“Ichigo-sama,” he returned without missing a beat.

For a terrifying moment, he misread that curling of Shiba’s lips as a cruel smile, before he registered the soft eyes and relaxed brow.

“It will do for now.”

“How did dinner go?” Hiyori asked the next day.

“Moderately well, I found out who my sponsor is.”

“Who?” She demanded.

“Shiba Ichigo.”

“SHI—” she lowered her voice to a carrying hiss that made him despair internally, “ _—ba Ichigo?_ ”

He unwrapped his newest package serenely, seemingly unaffected. “Indeed.”

Hiyori shook her head. “Only you would catch the attention of the most powerful man born in the last few hundred years.”

“I’m sorry?” He asked, bewildered.

She gave him an expression of mixed annoyance and disgust, which morphed into one of wicked glee that made him suddenly wary. “If you can’t figure it out yourself, then I’m not going to tell you.”

She sauntered off, as smug as he’d ever seen anyone.

… well then. He’d have to just keep trying to figure Shiba Ichigo out then, he supposed.

Now that he knew who his sponsor was, Kisuke felt no shame in marching to the Shiba compound and inviting Shiba Ichigo out to dinner.

Well. Take out delivery in his captain’s office at a time resembling dinner.

Hiyori gave him the most disgusted look he had seen anyone muster, which said a lot because he had been a Rukongai rat adopted by Yoruichi as her retainer, when he mentioned why he needed to take an evening off for only the second time since he had become captain of the twelfth devision.

He didn’t let it stop him from sending a courier out to the gyuudon stall a block away from the western edge of the twelfth devision’s compound.

It was made a moot point anyways, when Shiba Ichigo recognised the boxes on his desk and proclaimed his love for Satobi’s gyuuden. It was both somewhat odd and somewhat typical of Shiba Ichigo to know Satobi, from the rumours that Kisuke had collated, so he let the odd bout of relief that he had ordered something Shiba Ichigo enjoyed overwhelm him without thinking too closely about it.

Shiba Ichigo made a surprisingly welcome dinner companion, once he relaxed enough, and before he knew it, he was promising him a tour of his personal labs. Kisuke immediately tensed up again, then forced himself to relax. Maybe this was what Ichigo had been angling for the whole time?

“Kisuke?” Ichigo asked, a small frown on his face, “What’s wrong? Did I say something wrong?”

He shook his head hurriedly. “Not at all, Ichigo-kun.”

Ichigo’s frown deepened. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” he said firmly.

Perhaps a bit _too_ firmly, but Ichigo just let it slide without another word.

After dinner was finished, Kisuke brought out the sake he was keeping in his desk, but Ichigo refused it with a shake of his head and a solid hand against his. “Another time,” Ichigo told him, “I need to get back to the compound preferably not drunk on anything more than your presence.”

Kisuke immediately blushed furiously. He couldn’t help it. It was the first time Ichigo had expressed this—this sort of interest in him. And so blatantly too! He didn’t think that Ichigo was the type either to try to... buy such a favour.

He was still blushing, if not as furiously, when he showed Ichigo out of the compound.

“Ah, before I go,” Ichigo said suddenly, turning to face him, “For you.”

He was confused but readily took the wrapped package Ichigo offered him. It was clearly a book, but Ichigo instructed him not to open it until he was back in his office.

Kisuke shrugged but sent Ichigo properly off before retreating to his office and carefully unwrapping the book.

His jaw dropped, unashamedly.

A pristine, brand new copy of the Shiba’s family secrets on kido creation and manipulation, all written in the brushstrokes he had come to recognise as Ichigo’s.

Surely… surely this was a bit much just for a hook up, right! Of course, this was undoubtedly only the first book out of hundreds, thousands even, cultivated by the Shiba clan over their years of prominence, but even so, it was—it was _beyond priceless_ to a budding kudo-user.

Hiyori barged in, took one look at his shocked, vaguely faint face, and marched over.

She sputtered.

“I see dinner went well,” she said, voice carefully neutral even though he could clearly read the restrained annoyance in her brow.

“Ah, yes,” he coughed into his fist. “I would appreciate it if you could, ahh,”

“Keep this all hush-hush?” she interrupted archly. “I wasn’t born this century.” She tossed her head. “I know how these sorts of relationships work.”

Kisuke desperately wanted to ask her how ‘these sorts of relationships’ worked because honestly he didn’t even know _what_ relationship he and Ichigo were in, but that would be exposing too much of weakness. It was absolutely not because she had issued him a challenge earlier, not at all.

…. He still wasn’t quite sure of the meaning behind the book Ichigo gave him, although at the very least he knew what to do with it.

The SRDI gradually got used to seeing Ichigo around. He made frequent appearances to pull Kisuke out of research hazes, and to pick him up for dinners that ranged wildly between cheap take out eaten in Kisuke's office and lavish events with seven formal courses. As had become routine, Ichigo always left behind some immeasurably priceless treasure, or knowledge, after rejecting a drink and returning to the Shiba clan compound.

Kisuke was about ready to pound in his – sponsor? friend? friend. – friend’s face in if he didn’t accept the offer for some sake or wine soon. He didn’t know why Ichigo kept insisting on holding out on him, if there was some sort of… underlying reason or meaning behind accepting an invitation for a drink.

He tried to solve this problem the only way he knew how. He asked Yoruichi.

“Only you, Kisuke!” Yoruichi promptly cackled delightfully. “Only you could attract the attention of the most powerful man in a few hundred years!”

He gave her the long-suffering look he had cultivated well in her company. “That’s _exactly_ what Hiyori said,” he muttered sullenly into his tea.

“Sarugaki Hiyori?” she asked, “You asked her?”

He nodded. “She wouldn’t tell me anything. Said if I couldn’t figure it out myself, she wasn’t going to tell me.”

Yoruichi considered him for a long, stretching moment. “I think it’s more entertaining this way.” She said decisively. “You can figure it out, Kisuke, I’m sure.”

Then she flipped off the balcony of the teahouse they were having tea at and promptly left him the bill.

… Well at least he had budgeted savings from the food money that Ichigo kept sending him, and his captain’s paycheck was… decent. Enough to cover a simple meal for his friend, at the very least.

Honestly it didn’t click for him until he was signing into his personal labs and saw the dwindling number of lab hours he had logged every day. He could even clearly mark the day that Ichigo had apparently decided to take him out to dinner twice, even three times, a week.

Kurotsuchi glanced over his shoulder to see what he was frozen over and let out an irritated noise.

“Yes, you’ve been logging less and less hours ever since your _boyfriend_ began taking you out to dinners. Accept it and move on. Better yet, come observe the latest data we obtained on the creation of Modified Souls. Konpaku said he had a breakthrough.”

He wasn’t sure what words could be used to describe the strangled noise that floated out of him at the realisation. Ichigo was… courting him? Him? Urahara Kisuke? Rukongai rat, morally-ambiguous him?

“Well, are you coming or not?” Kurotsuchi snapped, “If you’re not, go on one of your dates so that the rest of us can concentrate on our _work_ instead of being distracted by your ridiculous, sentimental _pining_.”

He snapped back into focus. “That won’t be necessary, Kurotsuchi, I’ll be right along as soon as I finish signing and scrubbing in. Go on ahead of me.”

“If you’re not along in ten minutes, we’ll begin without you.”

He began to sign and scrub himself in absently while his mind wondered. Was that what all those gifts were about? Oh, Mother Death, was that why Ichigo had given him several books of Shiba family secrets? Because he wasn’t expecting Kisuke to stay _out_ of the Shiba family?

He banged into the lab in distraction.

“Urahara!” Kurotsuchi snapped, more irritably than usual.

Kisuke shook his head. Worry about Ichigo later, concentrate on the lab now.

He… broke the issue at their next… date. That is to say, Kisuke waited for an opportunity and then kissed Ichigo.

Ichigo made an odd noise into their pressed lips.

He pulled away.

“You alright, Ichigo?” He asked into the space between their lips.

“Fine,” Ichigo said, sounding slightly strangled, “Very fine.”

He hummed. “Would you like to stay for a drink?” He offered.

Kisuke wasn’t sure where he misstepped but Ichigo’s face fell, instantly.

“Ichigo?” He asked carefully.

“Never mind,” Ichigo said with a pained smile. “I do need to go back to the compound about now.”

As he walked Ichigo out to the entrance of the 12th Devision compound, Kisuke mulled over the interaction in his head and selected his words with care. When Ichigo gave him his customary gift, he made sure to let his hand linger over Ichigo’s for longer than usual, then to catch Ichigo’s wrist in a loose grip.

“Ichigo…” he murmured.

Ichigo was instantly focused on him, and how had he missed this before? That fierce, laser-focused attention?

“Tomorrow,” he said haltingly, “Kurotsuchi-kun will be watching over the labs so, I can, I will be available from lunch onwards. Will you take me out on a date?”

Ichigo smiled beatifically at him, and it was like staring into the most radiant sunrise. “Of course, Kisuke.”

He waved Ichigo off with what was undoubtedly the most ridiculous smile.


End file.
